


The Appendicitis Files

by shadowolfhunter



Series: The Appendicitis Files [1]
Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Appendicitis, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Schmoop, Sickfic, pre-Nick/Sean if you really squint, unicorn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 23:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3627585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowolfhunter/pseuds/shadowolfhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've all been working around the clock to capture a vicious killer, and Captain Sean Renard has pushed himself past the point of no return. He's been ignoring the abdominal pain, but now he's caught his killer, Sean needs to take care of his own body's needs. </p><p>Waking up in hospital he's overwhelmed by the spontaneous outpouring of caring from his officers and wesen friends.</p><p>It seems he might be part of a family after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Appendicitis Files

Sean Renard looked up from his paperwork at the sound of knuckles rapping on his doorframe. It was Nick, “Sir, we’re all going to breakfast. Celebrate you closing this. Where do you fancy going?”

Sean shook his head, “raincheck, Nick.” He smiled, just a slight quirk of his lips, and Nick frowned.

“Sir, are you alright?” He stepped forward, the lighting in the precinct wasn’t the best, but Renard’s usual healthy, olive skintone was grey, and his cheeks were flushed, something wasn’t right.

He’d barely reached the Captain’s desk, when Renard gasped and bent double, arms wrapped across his belly, but he winced and pulled his hands away, half pushing the chair back, he fell to his knees as Nick caught him. “Captain?” Nick looked round “SOMEONE CALL FOR A BUS. CAPTAIN’S DOWN.”

Sean barely had time to register movement all around him before another surge of pain tore through his body, Nick gently laid him down. “Where does it hurt, sir?”

Sean was shivering as waves of nausea rolled his stomach. Nick’s gentle fingers unbuckled his belt. Fingers probed his abdomen, and Sean howled.

“44 year old male with abdominal pain.”

“No he hasn’t anything for hours… how do I know… he’s my Captain… we’ve been chasing a case for the last four days…. We were about to go to breakfast… yes I’m sure.” Sean caught snatches of conversation, but it hurt so damn much he could barely concentrate. He reached out blindly and Nick’s hand caught his, gently. He knew it was Nick’s hand.

“… going with him… make me.”

Sean closed his eyes, that warm weight on his hand never faltered, it stayed there, true and strong.

*****

Nick gathered a coffee from the tray in front of him, and waved young Lockley the precinct rookie away. They were all there. At some point half the precinct had been by, all waiting for news of Renard.

It was appendicitis. He was in surgery.

They should go home.

As if any of them would.

Nick knew the only family that Sean would acknowledge or would care for him was Sean’s mother. He was pretty certain even Sean didn’t know how to get hold of her.

Nick and Hank and the rest of Sean’s detectives were his family.

More so than the cold and cruel Royals of Vienna. Though Nick had no doubt that they knew of this, or would care. On the other hand, Sean’s family might see it as a golden opportunity to harm Sean.

But Nick and Hank and Wu and everyone who had cause to know Sean would protect him. So while they waited, they made plans. Drew up a schedule. Sean would never be alone, he would be safe.

*****

It wasn’t usually hospital policy to allow visitors to the recovery room, but it was pointed out to the doctor that Sean Renard was a special case, and if harm befell the hero captain on his sick bed, things would not go so well for them.

Hank Griffin could be very persuasive when he wanted to be.

*****

Nick sat by Sean’s bedside and waited for the drugs to wear off. The Captain had come round once, noted with a puzzled frown (according to Hank) Hank sitting next to his bed and had promptly fallen back to sleep again.

The operation had been a success, they had got the appendix before it burst, although it had been quite a close run thing. Renard had to have been in excruciating pain for several days according to the doctor.

Of course that piece of information had spread like wildfire, and that was when it started. Half the precinct dropping in to leave cards and gifts. Cards littered the bedside table, they’d brought in another table to take the overflow, there were children’s drawings, and a couple of the older officers’ had even brought in pictures done by their grandchildren. The precinct officers were horrified that the Captain had put aside his own well-being to catch a vicious killer, everyone wanted to show Sean that he mattered, people cared about him.

Nick reached out and took Sean’s hand, sometimes he let his feelings about Renard be clouded by the whole Grimm/Wesen thing, when it came down to it, Sean Renard was a good and very brave officer and Nick wanted to acknowledge that.

He’d added his own card to the melee… though quite at what point he’d decided to buy the present he had given to Sean he couldn’t have said. He eyed the thing warily, because honestly the Grimm stuff was probably getting to him now, and that was the result. He winced a little.

*****

Sean woke slowly, his abdomen ached, but the vicious stabbing pain that had been there only minutes before had gone. The rational part of Sean’s brain realized that the minutes were probably hours at the very least, that he was in hospital, so he opened his eyes intending to check out his surroundings and work out his plan to get out of here and back home as fast as possible.

The room was full of things, Renard frowned a little, that was strange to him. He looked around all the get well cards, and curious childish drawings, and gifts wondering if he was somehow in the wrong room. He looked towards the usual hard plastic visitor’s chair.

Someone had put a soft toy unicorn on the seat.

Sean stared, round eyed, at the thing. Tried to swallow at the unexpected lump in his throat, somewhere in the back of his mind a long distant childhood fantasy replayed itself, where he owned a unicorn.

None of his officers could possibly have known that, and Sean was the wrong side of forty for such sentimentalism. He swallowed a couple of times, wishing that his throat wasn’t quite so dry.

“Hey, you’re awake.” Nick appeared in the doorway, and Sean just stared at him for a moment, Nick walked back to the chair, moving the unicorn to the over-bed table, which was probably the only bare space left.

“All this.” At least that was what Sean meant to say, his voice didn’t sound like his own, and Nick reached out for the water jug and glass. Holding it for Sean to get a few sips through the straw, and ease his aching parched throat.

It took a few seconds for Nick to process the dumbstruck look on his Captain’s face, and a surge of protectiveness nearly overwhelmed the Grimm. Renard clearly hadn’t expected any of the cards or presents, hadn’t expected anyone to care, and not for the first time, Nick wondered how bad the man’s life had been before he arrived in Portland.

He clasped the Captain’s hand and gently squeezed, the Captain’s fingers closing around his, as older man relaxed into the pillows, and started to drift off again.

*****

Renard woke again, and it was dark, Nick had gone, and Hank was sitting in his place. 

“Hey Captain, how’re you feeling?”

Sean felt vaguely ashamed of how weak and wiped out he felt, Hank having to hold the glass so that Sean could get a drink. “Better.” He whispered. Not perhaps strictly true, he still felt slightly nauseous, but he didn’t want a fuss.

It became a pattern, Renard would come to, one of his officers would be sitting by his bed, they might exchange a few words here and there, and then Renard would sleep again, wake and there would be someone new.

The fifth or sixth time he woke, he lost track, there was someone entirely different. “Captain.”

It was Rosalee. She helped him drink, but this time felt different to the last few times he had wakened. He tried to warn her, but nausea had him sitting forward with a lurch, Rosalee’s hand holding a steel bowl she had grabbed for him.

Sean retched miserably, bringing up only bile. Rosalee had an arm around him and was gently rubbing his shoulder with her hand in a comforting motion.

Things became something of a blur for a while, discomfort punctuated by strange dreams, as he continued to sleep and waken to find his officers and other people rotating duty by his bedside, but the pain and nausea was back and for a while he cared very little about what was going on around him.

****

He woke again, this time he felt better, a lot stronger. He turned his head on the pillow expecting to see someone in the visitor’s seat, and it occurred to him that he was expecting someone, wondering how his life had apparently changed, and it was Nick.

Somehow that really made him feel better.

The Grimm looked tired, eyes closed, slumped over leaning against Sean’s bed, and without thinking Sean reached out to touch Nick’s hand which was resting close to Sean’s.

“huh!” Nick snuffled slightly and his eyes opened. Renard tried not to find that little snuffle endearing.

“Hey.” He sat up. “You look better.”

“I feel better.” Sean was surprised to find it was true. The queasy feeling was gone. He looked around him, the number of cards wishing him well, as well as the gifts seemed to actually have increased, there was a pleasant hum somewhere at the back of Sean’s mind which was pleased if confused at all the attention. Though he searched the gifts quickly for sight of the unicorn again.

It was sitting on top of a basket which Sean was pretty sure contained one of Mrs Bud’s pies. Sean Renard might have been wesen royalty, but he knew the value of pie. And Mrs Bud’s cherry was something very special indeed.

The unicorn wasn’t a dream. That was the part that he was still trying to process. He was moved by his officers’ concern and care, but that one of them, particularly as he was fairly certain he knew which one, could tap into something within Sean that was a half-remembered dream touched him deeply.

They were beginning to wean him off the drugs, as he had finally combatted the infection that had put his recovery time back by four days. More wesen came to be with him, and he would normally have termed them Nick’s friends, but somehow he had become part of that whole circle. Rosalee, Monroe, Bud, Frank Rabe (although he had cause to know Frank for other reasons), and several others, but no hexenbiester. Which didn’t really come as much of a surprise, Sean knew Nick would have had a hand in that.

*****

Sean had passed a battery of tests and they were finally allowing him to go home to his own bed and sleep on his own much more comfortable mattress and sheets. He had to take things easy, and the little circle of protection was still in place despite his protests that he could handle things on his own. Hank pointed out that he could, but why would he want to when Hank and the others could do the heavy lifting for him.

He dressed himself a little slowly, his abdominal sutures were healing nicely, and he would be left with barely a scar, but he had to be careful. No hitting the gym for at least another four weeks.

As he dressed, he looked around for it. It seemed as though every time he slept he would wake up to find the little thing moved somewhere else, the first couple of times it seemed to be coincidence. Then he realized he was searching for it, the novelty plush had taken on some kind of mythical symbolism in his own head at least.

The soft toy was sitting on one of the baskets of gifts, now carefully stuffed with cards and drawings and other little trinkets as they packed his things up for him.

The first time he actually picked it up, the soft fur seemed like a caress beneath his hand, it was a curiously childish thing, but the significance of the gift, and what the unicorn represented made it special in his eyes. He stroked the soft plush fur gently, and opening his bag, tucked it away inside with his personal belongings.

Someday soon, he promised himself, he would ask Nick if he meant what the gift represented.

“Are you ready?”

He nodded, “Signed the discharge papers half an hour ago.”

“Shall we?” Nick held the door wide for his Captain, and Sean thought _why not today_ , as he headed in the direction of the car, and home.

He smiled. It felt good to be alive.

**Author's Note:**

> the unicorn in question http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steiff-15106-Starly-Unicorn-White/dp/B00HY8BZ7S/ref=pd_sim_sbs_k_h_b_cs_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0S7TSRVN8G3CYS68F9HS


End file.
